Known Unknowns, the Rolling Stones, and Karl Rove

>> Donald Rumsfeld: As we know, there are known knowns, there are things we know, we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know, but there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.

And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

>> Bill Whelan: It's Monday, November 27, 2023, and welcome back to Goodfellows, a Hoover institution broadcast examining social, economic, political and geopolitical concerns. I'm Bill Whelan, I'm a Hoover distinguished policy fellow, I'll be your moderator today.

And I'm proud to report that I am joined by not one, but two, but all three of our goodfellows. That would be, of course, the distinguished historian Neil Ferguson, the economist John Cochran, geostrategist and resident optimist, Lieutenant General Hr. McMaster. Gentlemen, good to see you. We're gonna do two segments today.

We're gonna go to the Middle east and talk about what comes next when the truce finally ends. We're doing this on Monday the 27th, so this is the fourth of the four day truce, but it's been, been extended for two more days. But first, we turn our attention to US politics.

And joining us for that conversation, a return guest on goodfellows. You know him as the architect of the Bush 43 presidency, political columnist for Wall Street Journal, a self described political hack. We welcome back Karl Rove. Karl, great to see you.

>> Karl Rove: Good to be back with you, or at least most of you.

 

>> Bill Whelan: Most of you.

>> Bill Whelan: So, Carl, I'd like to believe that I begin this conversation-

>> Karl Rove: MacMaster laugh, because he knew it was directed at him.

>> Bill Whelan: By the way, should we, let's vote on this. Should we ask McMaster to stand up and show us the complete ensemble he has on today, or.

 

>> Karl Rove: Please, under no circumstances.

>> H. R. McMaster: Okay, all right, I am in Southern California, and I am going to go paddle boarding immediately after Goodfellow.

>> Niall Ferguson: So is this just designed to make me feel bad?

>> Niall Ferguson: Because it's working.

>> Bill Whelan: Neo life is about choices, and you chose to go to England.

So, Karl, here we are, 49 days out from Iowa, and I want to read something that you wrote in the Wall Street Journal in early November. Quote, neither party's frontrunner will be easily dislodged, but if no changes are made, Americans will get the worst dumpster fire of a campaign in history.

I'd like to amend the idea of dumpster fire, Carl, and throw this idea at you. It's not maybe a dumpster fire. Maybe it's a tire fire in this regard, like something that burns for years and years. For everyone who is apoplectic about the choices of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, they probably felt the same way in 2020, and they probably felt the same way in 2016.

So, Carl, is 2024 unique in this choice, or are we just in a particularly rough stretch of political history in America?

>> Karl Rove: Well, I think we're in a rough stretch where both parties are animated more by an animus towards their opponents than they are by any positive or optimistic vision for the future of the country that their leaders are offering.

But we're also 49 days from the Iowa caucuses, and one thing we've learned is lots of strange things can happen in the Iowa caucuses. I think at this point in 2016, was it Ben Carson who was ahead, and Ted Cruz won Iowa.

>> Bill Whelan: Howard Dean.

>> Karl Rove: Howard Dean.

At this point in 2008, Hillary Clinton was far and away, and Barack Obama caught her. My favorite, and what I think is sort of the model for if there is gonna be something that happens differently, I think the model is 1984, Democrats. We forget back then that everybody knew that Walter Mondale was gonna be the nominee of the Democratic Party.

All the polls showed it way ahead in the mid to high 50s. At this point nationwide, the final poll before the Iowa caucuses was 49% for Mondale. Tied for second with 13 points each were Jesse Jackson and Senator John Glenn. Fourth place was Reubin Askew, the former governor of Florida, and Carter's trade rep at five.

And tied for fifth and 6th were two senators, Alan Cranston, Mr.uuu and Gary Hart, New Democratic Colorado. And on caucus night, Mondale nailed it, 48.9% of the vote, but there was a surprise, second place finish, Gary Hart, New Democrat. And for the next eight days, all we talked about was the unusual, the tall, lanky, laconic, New Democrat, Atari Democrat from Colorado, Gary Hart.

And eight days later, in New Hampshire, he upset Walter Mondale, and we were off to the races. Mondale begins to fight back on March 11 with a televised debate. He says, every time you talk, I'm reminded of that commercial, where's the beef?

>> Walter Mondale: When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad, where's the beef?

 

>> Karl Rove: And ultimately won. But what we forget is that it took until June 5, Gary Hart won 27 contests, and on June 5, he won California, New Mexico, and South Dakota. But Mondale won West Virginia and New Jersey and secured the democratic nomination, clinched it with 21 delegates to spare.

Now, my point is, that unusual thing happened in Iowa, that led to an unusual thing in New Hampshire. And if Gary Hart had a better explanation of March and April, of what it was to be a new Democrat, an explanation provided eight years later by a governor from Arkansas.

He could have won the nomination from the guy who got it by 21 delegates. So let's see if Trump's making a mistake, in my opinion, by saying I'm 60 points ahead. No, you're at 43% in Iowa in the latest Iowa poll, you were 42 in August and you're sort of stuck.

Six out of ten republicans in Iowa are supporting somebody else, and let's see what happens in Iowa. And if he comes out with a 38% and we got somebody at 28%, that's gonna be the story, the strong second finish.

>> Bill Whelan: I think Karl is also trust been to Iowa something like 17 times, and I believe DeSantis has been there 130 and he's running the so called grassley strategy.

If you go to all 99 counties. But the Grassley strategy is familiar. It worked for Ted Cruz, it worked for Rick Santorum in 2012. But does familiarity still work in the Iowa caucuses, Carl, or these candidates need to be thinking about a new strategy since it is a different candidate with Trump, and it's 2024.

 

>> Karl Rove: Yeah, well, they need to realize the most critical part of the Iowa caucus is still to come the next 49 days. Think about that latest Iowa poll, 43 for Trump. But that's 29 of that 43 say my mind is made up, I'm for Trump, 14 say I'm open to voting for somebody else.

And between August and October, the beginning of October, Nikki Haley went from six to 16, and that's on the basis of two debate performances. The first and second debate, all of the first debate was cooked into that. I think the second debate was literally like a day or two before the poll was fielded.

But think about that 13 million people watch the televised debate. There are gonna be 60 million people who vote. And she goes in Iowa from six to 16. And my suspicion is probably at 18, 19, 20 today, and she's got the momentum. And that's from nine minutes out of 90 minutes of the debate was what she occupied.

That was the space. So it strikes me that people are out there open to doing something else. They gotta find out what that something else is. And in Iowa, anybody who's been through Iowa, as I painfully have been through a couple of times, the last time in 2000, admittedly.

They don't make up their minds until the end. They wanna see you. The only good news is, once they make a decision, they tend to stay stuck. Unlike those SOBs in New Hampshire who change their minds about every three or four days. This guy in 2000 who said, George, I saw you, I love your mom and dad, I'm for you, next time we show up on the state and say, I went and heard John McCain at the bull firehouse and he's doing a hell of a job answering questions.

And I hate to tell you, but I'm from John. And next time we show up, he says, you know what I've been thinking? You're the Republican Governor with the democrat legislature. You've been able to get results, you're the bipartisan guy for you. Some of it, the last time before the vote, he showed up at a thing and said, George, I've decided finally, I'm gonna stay stuck.

I'm voting for you and we lose by 19 points, why couldn't he have stayed with McCain? And maybe some of that bad karma had washed off on McCain, they stay stuck.

>> John H. Cochrane: Karl justice, he knows not just every election in us history, but every single voter in the country.

Just pretty impressive. You're giving us hope on the Republican side where there is something like 1984, some good, plausible, well organized candidates. What about on the democratic side? That doesn't sound like your 1984 story.

>> Karl Rove: No, I think it is more like 1968.

>> Bill Whelan: Right.

>> Karl Rove: You have the New Hampshire primary and McCarthy does pretty well, Johnson wins it.

But I mean, it wasn't the only factor that caused Johnson on the 31st march to recognize that he was in trouble.

>> Lyndon Johnson: I shall not see and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.

>> Karl Rove: Well, what happens if Dean Phillips gets, I don't know what the number is.

25%, 30% of the vote in New Hampshire, he's completely he's a protest vessel. The only reason he's there is for you to say, you know what, Mr.Biden, with all due respect, don't do this. And you know what? How will that enter in? I mean, he's a pure protest vote.

There's no reason to vote for him except to say to Biden, step aside. I do know this, I do not think it's an accident that the Governors of California, Illinois and Michigan have all filed federal committees so they can spend federal money and move around the country. I don't think that's an accident.

And I don't think it's an accident that the Governor of California with his excellent hair and not much else is focused laser like. On making certain that every member of the Biden delegation of the Democratic National Convention from California is a Newsom person. Because I think he's betting on this thing coming apart by the time that the Democrats get together in August.

August, for God's sake, in Chicago, that they might be in a position where the Democrat convention has to decide who the nominee is, and it ain't gonna be Joe Biden because he's gonna be sidelined for one reason or another.

>> Niall Ferguson: So, Carl, I buy this story. I'm particularly sold on 1968 cuz I struggled to see Biden going the distance.

And it's clear that certainly amongst the Democrats I talk to, that they're deeply worried about the situation they're in. But let's just go forward and take advantage of your great political insight. Suppose it is Haley Newsom. When we finally get to vote, November of 2024, who do you think wins?

 

>> Karl Rove: Well, Haley, because Newsom is the Governor of California. And look, I look out my window towards the hills west of Austin, and there are a lot of California expatriates fleeing high taxes, unsafe streets, crappy schools, and a nutty state government. And they're coming here by not the score and the hundreds, but the hundreds of thousands.

Think about it, California, every ten years since its admission as a state in 1850, has gained strength in the United States Congress until the 2020 census. And for the first time since it joined the union, it lost seats in the US House. And that's not because the weather's crappy or the restaurant's terrible or the beach is dreadful.

And it's not because they've seen McMaster out on that surfboard in his outfit, it's because-.

>> H. R. McMaster: Hoover institution Speedo.

>> Karl Rove: Yeah, exactly. My God.

>> Karl Rove: Just another 25,000 people are starting to dial their phones and get a band to come them up. It's because California has turned into a parody of a state government, so-.

 

>> John H. Cochrane: They bring their voting habits with them when they move to Austin.

>> Karl Rove: No, no.

>> John H. Cochrane: Tell me wrong.

>> Karl Rove: There was a poll, not well done, but a poll of people who had moved to Texas and registered to vote since November of 2020. This is before the 2022 election.

They were 38% Republican and 28% Democrat, and their generic ballot was 59R41D. I've been involved in a voter registration effort called the VEP, we've been below the radar for the last four years. We've added 500,000 additional Republicans to the rolls in Texas, and we don't register by party.

So we have to do some tricks to figure out whether or not they're Republicans before we go after them for registration. But the people that are moving here, just like the people that are moving to Florida. Are people saying, I want a state government that works with limited taxes, limited government, good schools, safe communities, and sensible leaders.

And California, unfortunately, at this point, doesn't have that well.

>> H. R. McMaster: And just to go back to the question, who wins if it's Governor Haley versus Governor Newsom? Governor Haley has a stronger record as Newsom has a weak record, I would say, in terms of her leadership in South Carolina.

But also her performance that I got to observe directly when she was ambassador to the United nations, she did a phenomenal job. I mean, it's a really not well known story that she got through, really four rounds of unprecedented sanctions against North Korea with a security council that had Russia and China sitting on it.

And she did that, I think, in large measure by force of personality.

>> Karl Rove: Yeah, I saw that as Governor of South Carolina in 2010. I was the speaker at the Silver Elephant ball, which may sound like a crazy event, and it is, but Ronald Reagan spoke there, 41 spoke there.

It's the big South Carolina Republican fundraising dinner, and I was the speaker that year. And I was sitting at the head table, which is a round table in the middle of the room, and I was sitting next to the then Governor Mark Sanford, who just come off the Appalachia trail, if you get my drift.

Nobody wanted to come and talk to that guy. So I'm sitting at the head table, literally, there are empty seats. On one side of me is one empty seat, on the other side of him are two empty seats because members of the host committee have disappeared rather than sit at the table with the Governor.

But I'm watching the Lieutenant Governor, the Attorney General, and an Upstate Congressman, all of whom are running for governor, sitting at their tables waiting for people to come and kiss the ring. And they're just waiting, South Carolina politics is sort of England in the 15th century. It's the duchy of the PD and the royal principality of the upcountry and so forth.

And so they were all coming, everybody was going by to pay their respects. Doors blow open at the end of the room, in walks this tall, statuesque three term state legislator who works every single table, particularly the table of her three opponents. And I'm seeing energy, enthusiasm, she's pinching their cheeks.

You can tell she's undoing everything she can to unsettle, but I'm thinking she's gonna kick their ass, and she did.

>> John H. Cochrane: Well, what you're giving us hope for is a principled discussion of what's going on. I don't think the average person in the country knows just how broken things are in California, and she can have a really principled political debate, maybe back to Lincoln Douglas, if those two go at it.

And I think we'll get a preview. I'm looking forward to the DeSantis Newsom debate and see if that is a good high level debate about policies and just what works and what don't.

>> Karl Rove: Yeah, I'm with you, I'm looking forward to that. I think that's gonna be a great discussion.

And look, DeSantis has a role to play in this, too. I think there is an advantage to doing the full Grassley. And I do think there's an advantage of having a gigantic neighbor-to-neighbor program like he's got, where it's identifying and canvassing people. And frankly, it's advantageous to the anti Trump faction that there be two people in the state who are getting votes.

One who's gonna get more of the suburban, sort of traditional republican, Iowa, sort of moderate conservative vote. And another one who's gonna do well among the evangelicals and the more Trumpian element that's tired of Trump. And that describes the two universes of DeSantis on the latter and the former is Haley.

But look, it's a long shot, but we've got a weird politics and we've got two very idiosyncratic states at the beginning of this who've shown a willingness to confound the conventional wisdom.

>> Niall Ferguson: Can I just throw a question in that? It's a John question, I keep asking myself about the economy because it seems to me a decent chance that the economy feels quite a bit worse next year.

I'm not gonna predict a recession. I think everybody got scared of doing that. But it's gonna feel worse for sure. And I'm struck when I look at the polling where Trump is in a strong position is on the economy. People have good memories of the Trump economy and they're very disgusted with the Biden economy, even though objectively it's quite strong.

The polling for Biden and the economy is astonishingly bad. And I keep asking myself if maybe Nikki Haley's problem is memories of the Trump economy. The worst things get for the economy, the more people will say, you know what? Say what you like about Trump, he delivered. There was no inflation.

Full employment is a great economy. I'm seeing that as an important issue to voters. If that's a dominant issue by middle of next year, does that help Trump?

>> Karl Rove: Well, I'll tell you can answer that if you like. I think you're right that particularly in a general election, this generalized sense that things were better for people in their lives in 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 is powerful.

And Biden has made it worse by talking about how good things are. Look, overlapping everything, overshadowing everything, is the reality of people's lives, which is since he became president, prices have gone up 18% and median household income has dropped 3%. So people are walking into the grocery store or walking into the closing store to buy clothes for the kids or paying, picking up presents for Christmas.

And seeing a gap of 20%, things are 21% more expensive, combined with inflation and decline than they were three and a half years ago. And that's not going away. And it's gonna take some time before we sort of get adjusted to that new reality. And so I think it's gonna be an advantage for him in a general election, and I think to some degree, it's an advantage for him in a primary.

But I will say this. If you take a look at the general election, like, there was the, I think it was the Washington Post poll, but I may be wrong about that. Trump in the battleground states is like two points ahead of Trump. DeSantis is four points ahead of Trump, actually, Biden.

Haley is eight points ahead of Biden, and the generic Republican is 16 points ahead. That says to me that the more that some, whichever party figures out it's time to nominate a new face is gonna get an advantage. If the Democrats nominate a new face, there's gonna be a certain way that they can run against Trump.

If the Republicans nominate a new face, there's a certain way that they're gonna be able to run against Biden, which is gonna be stronger for either party than if they went with the front runner today. But, I mean, I was blown away by those numbers. I mean, what do we know about Nikki Haley?

McMaster knows a lot, but we know as a people about this much and we know this much about Trump, and yet she is, like, 8 points ahead. And the generic Republican, just what people think that they think they know about what a Republican stands for is 16 points better than Biden?

My God, he's in terrible shape.

>> Bill Whelan: I wanna take you back to 1968 in this regard, Carl. It's the last election in which a third-party candidate won a state. George Wallace managed to win five of them. I'd like to get your thoughts on RFK Junior and what potency you see there, but also the no labels movement in this talk now about maybe a Manchin Romney fusion ticket.

 

>> Karl Rove: Yeah. So, look, third-party candidates not gonna win the election, but they're gonna determine the outcome of the election. Take 2016. The Jill Stein of the Green Party. Her votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, each of those states is bigger than the losing margin of Hillary Clinton. And in 2020, Joe Jurgen, I defy you to tell me what she does for a living.

Got more votes in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin than the losing margin of Donald Trump. And the answer is she is a lecturer in psychology at Clemson University. So, yes, a third-party candidate, RFK, is gonna play among Democrats and Republicans. He's gonna take sort of environmental extremists and Kennedy fanatics from the Democrats and anti vaxxers from the Republicans.

Cornel west is gonna hurt among young people and some elements of the black community gonna hurt the Democrats. The Jill Stein is gonna hurt among environmentalists, the libertarians gonna hurt among Republicans. The question is gonna be, if no labels gets involved, do they have a ticket that appeals more to republican voters or Democrat voters?

I don't think it's gonna be Joe Manchin.

>> Bill Whelan: No.

>> Karl Rove: I don't think it's gonna be Mitt Romney, because both of those would be inclined to probably. Manchin, I'm not certain, has much appeal outside of West Virginia anymore, not after voting for the Inflation Reduction Act. But if they nominated, and he's not gonna run, but if they nominated Mitch Daniels, they would hurt whoever the republican nominee is more than the Democrats.

Particularly if it were Trump, because you'd have a traditional Reaganite Republican that they could vote for. But this is all gonna play out based on who the two parties nominate. If you had to bet today, you bet on the front runners, but I'd take the field against them, which means the nature of who these third-party candidates is, the nature of who they are in the summer of 2024.

And the fall of 2024 could have really consequential effects for one party or the other.

>> John H. Cochrane: So this has all gone too optimistic for me. So I wanna ask the grumpy question, then HR can ask the optimistic question at the end. You're painting a picture where we have an election, we play by the rules, somebody's elected, we all sing Kumbaya and go home.

But I'm worried that that's not at all what's gonna happen. Both parties have set up now institutions waiting to declare the election illegitimate, and all sorts of horrible things that follow from telling everyone this election is illegitimate. Now, with your knowledge of history and how things work, we'll have a tight election.

First thing that's going to happen, everything's going to be litigated, every smudged ballot, and God forbid that goes to the Supreme Court and that gets decided again by the Supreme Court. If that doesn't work, we're into the electoral college and the third-party could split the electoral college. So now the electoral college is gonna come up with someone who didn't have a majority electoral votes, protest in the street.

Suppose that doesn't work. We go to the House of Representatives where a tiny, slim majority of the Republicans maybe after 250 ballots can choose somebody, maybe they can't. I can just imagine how legitimate that's gonna feel to the Democrats. I worry about this whole thing falling apart and then after that, once this process has been declaimed illegitimate by everybody.

People take the branches of government they control, people take the states they control and all holy heck breaks loose. So you know how this process works. You know how the history of contentious times the 19th century have worked. Am I right to be totally worried about this or do you think we'll all sing Kumbaya in a year and a half?

 

>> Karl Rove: Yeah, we won't be seeing Kumbaya, but I think I'm more concerned that I am worried. I do think we need to hold people's feet to the fire in the summer and early fall of 2024. That is to say, we need to say, if you got a complaint about the process, show up in court and make your complaint.

Because, remember, it's like, people were stealing absentee mail in ballots. Well, we heard about that after the election, not before the election. And so we ought to be saying to people, if you got a complaint, you got to go to court and validate it before the election. And then, second of all, states have got to be aware that they need to have processes in place that are transparent and supportable and quick.

Because one of the things that draws this out is when it takes too long to count the votes in Pennsylvania or New York or California, and everybody needs to worry about that. And third, we need to be in a place where people are not allowed to stand up and say things like they said last time around.

22,000 dead people voted in Nevada. Well, prove it. There were only two. Now, if it does go to the electoral college, I don't think a third party candidate's gonna get any votes in the electoral college. I don't see anybody who's strong enough to be like George Wallace with an explicitly racist appeal to five southern states in 1968.

On the other hand, if it does end up going to the House, because nobody has a majority in the electoral college. That is a problem, because Republicans are likely to carry more Wyomings and Montanas and Idahos and North and South Dakotas than Democrats are to carry Rhode island and Massachusetts and so forth.

There are more republican states than there are democratic states, but I don't see us getting there. I think this thing could be at a place where there are election challenges and claims that close elections were stolen. But on the other hand, I think we know where those are going to be.

And I suspect that the secretaries of state and the governors of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Are paying a lot of attention to what needs to be done with the election machinery to get a quick and accurate vote that's transparent and supportive.

>> H. R. McMaster: I've just got to recommend some theme music to go along with John's question and your answer by a great musician who's underrated, Shawn Mullins, who has a great song all in my head.

And the lyrics are something like, is it all in my head? Could everything be all right without me knowing? So maybe that's the case. I hope it is.

>> Niall Ferguson: Well, is it time to bring up Grover? Because, Carl, you're an authority on the late 19th century, and I've been saying for some time to my concerned European friends.

American politics just has gone back to its 19th century self. It was a contact sport in the 19th century and is again now. Don't be surprised. And if you go back to what, 1892 was that the last time somebody managed two non-consecutive terms as president Grover Cleveland? Carl, you have a very interesting story about what that then led to.

And I wonder if we can kind of tease out the analogy. If Trump were to do it, if he were to be only the second president of two non-consecutive terms, what do you think the consequences would be? And is there anything we can learn from the 1890s?

>> Karl Rove: Well, Trump, the analogies may break down.

Grover Cleveland gets reelected in large part because his successor, Benjamin Harrison, whom he lost to in 88 and beats in 92, turns out to be a really dislikable figure. And he's acerbic and he's dry. He doesn't connect well with the American people. And then the Republicans in the House of Representatives have a very narrow majority, and they use that majority to achieve their goals.

But the goals are at odds with the american people. They pass a billion dollar budget for the first time, and they're called the billion dollar Congress. And the speaker of the House, Thomas Brackett Reed, responds to the criticism by saying, we're a billion dollar country, but people thought that Harrison was out of touch, that he was.

And then the Solid South came back and said, we're better off with Grover Cleveland in there, and we'll provide majority, and he can swing back a couple of these key battleground states of New York and Indiana and so forth. But then it turns south because the democratic party turns on itself.

There's a terrible economic calamity in 1893, and the democratic party divides over the question of, should we be on a gold standard or a silver standard? The Democrat Party has an insurgent organization that pops up inside it, the silverman, led by a couple of senators from the south, that literally takes over the Democratic Party.

1896, basically, state convention after state convention passes resolutions condemning the incumbent democratic president and his policies. And then goes to the national convention and nominates a silverman who literally says, okay, we're no longer responsible, the Democratic Party, for the economic difficulties of the country. Because the democratic president has pursued republican policies.

So not exactly the same, but it does give rise to the populism of William Jennings Bryan, a populist to the left, as opposed to a populist to the right. But Grover Cleveland won, in part because his predecessor failed to gain the confidence in the American people. And the Congress turned out to be an utter disaster and led by his, led by the party of the president.

So it's not exactly analogous, but some of those conditions are around today. An unpopular Congress.

>> Niall Ferguson: I could imagine if Trump were to be reelected. I don't know what John thinks about this, but it feels as if some kind of monetary problem is coming, given the completely unsustainable fiscal policy we're pursuing, which Donald Trump would certainly do nothing to address.

So I keep coming back to the question of whether the consequences of a second Trump term might be as unintended as the consequences of a second Cleveland term. Which ultimately to put the Democrats out of government for I don't know how many elections.

>> Karl Rove: 32 years. The defeat of Brian in 1896 ushers in a 32 or 36 year period of republican dominance broken only by the division within the party in 1912.

I mean, the only reason the Democrats win the presidency in 1912 is that Theodore Roosevelt splits the Republican Party. So if that's what you were getting at. Yeah, absolutely.

>> Niall Ferguson: It seems like it's really quite dangerous for Republicans to risk a second Trump terminal, added to which. Can I ask you a final question before we're out of time?

If he gets reelected, surely the point is you only get two years. Your second term is like, you're kind of lame duck for half of it. So I think people underestimate the extent to which Trump would only really have two years to do terribly much before he was in the lame duck situation.

Would that apply?

>> Karl Rove: Well, I think it would. In fact, I might suggest maybe less than two years, because if Trump is likely to face a democratic House of Representatives and a republican Senate. And the Republican Senate is gonna have a significant number of Republicans who are gonna be concerned about the fiscal posture of the country.

Who recognize the hospital trust fund of Medicare is going bankrupt in a matter of years, and Social Security a couple of years after that. So, yeah, I think he'd become a lame duck quicker. There may be executive actions that he can take, but I think he would face a very uncomfortable Congress.

Look, the likelihood of the House being remaining republican, unless there's a huge shift in the next couple of years, in the next couple of months, I think we're likely to face a Republican Senate and a democratic House. And a Republican Senate only because the Democrats have three senators up next year in states that Donald Trump carried.

And the Republicans may have good candidates in a couple of other states.

>> John H. Cochrane: For the moment, I don't see a big difference on fiscal matters. Trump wants to protect his industries, the Democrats want to keep Chinese electric cars out, and each wants to subsidize their own things. And both are gonna have to come to Jesus when the debt finally hits them.

But I wanna ask you, Carl, there's the elephant in the room, we're not talking about 92 indictments, this is completely unusual. What I see of the polling is a lot of the support for Trump is not, here's a sensible man with the policies I want.

>> Donald Rumsfeld: But, my God, how unfair that they're going after him for everything from jaywalking to unused parking tickets.

We may disagree about the severity, but this is how people feel, and a lot of the support is, they see the FBI, the Department of Justice is politicized going after them. They see censorship on the internet, so there's a sort of sympathy vote for Trump going on with this stuff.

How does that play out, what happens if, when Trump, one out of 92, is certainly gonna convict him? Is this gonna be like Chicago, where we elect people to the presidency from jail, how does that figure into your thinking?

>> Karl Rove: I think you're right that it's brought him sympathy, but it's also brought this foreboding sense that they may have too much baggage.

I think the key is gonna be the reaction to the first guilty verdict, which looks like it may be the first case that will be resolved will be the New York business dealings. And if people say, you know what, it was unfair, but it's baggage, and our country's in too brave a position to allow us to have that as a risk.

But, the one case that I think he's absolutely got a huge exposure on is the classified documents case. And that thing may not come to come to resolution until either late in the campaign or maybe until after the campaign is over. But-

>> John H. Cochrane: Yeah, that one comes late, that's the serious one.

If he's guilty on his business dealings. A real estate developer in New York overstated the value of his properties and lied on form 820 through three, I'm not sure voters are gonna get excited about that one.

>> Karl Rove: The second case that's likely to come to resolution, or may come to resolution is the Fulton county case, and where he's got lots of his former lawyers have now pled, now cut deals, and I think that's a problem.

But, look, we don't know who would have thought before this all began, that 91 cases would see the guy move up and the polls not move down? But I do sense out there, and people are sort of nervous about it, and yes, they believe it's unfair, and yes, they believe that the power of the government has been used against a political opponent.

But on the other hand, I think they also are sort of coming to a conclusion. Boy, he's got a lot of baggage. And you'll notice this is an argument that DeSantis is explicitly making, and to a lesser extent, Haley, are making in Iowa.

>> H. R. McMaster: Karl, just to that point, I mean, the juxtaposition of the horrible attacks of October 7 and Trump's statements on that day and around that day about his problems.

I think people have to come to the conclusion that then maybe he's a bit self-absorbed as well as preoccupied.

>> Karl Rove: You think?

>> Karl Rove: Yeah, I suspect anybody who worked in the White House saw how preoccupied he was with self in ordinary times. Yeah, now, I can just, I mean, you see it in his speeches, these speeches, I have to sort of watch them in order to comment.

And, my God, I mean, these are self-absorbed, I'm pre-being persecuted, this is all about me, and it's not about the country, it's about settling scores with, you know, the vermin on the other side. Anybody who's not for him has got, a great number of insults that he addresses them by.

But these are not uplifting speeches, these are rage and anger and distrust and a sense of pity, self-pity that I'm being treated this way, and it's because I represent you, and it's not a very pleasant sight. And, yeah, we'll see. This is why I called it a dumpster fire, I mean, this thing, if it is Biden versus Trump, we're gonna see this, each side is gonna have some enormous vulnerabilities that are gonna be on display.

And each side is gonna spend more time unleashing tactical nuclear battlefield weapons against each other than they are articulating what they intend to do over the next four years.

>> H. R. McMaster: Karl, you've been more than generous with your time, we have to go, but I would like to slip in one quick question before we go.

We've talked about so many variables, this kind of reminds me of Donald Rumsfeld, your old sidekick in the Bush administration, famously saying, what unknown unknowns.

>> Donald Rumsfeld: But there are also unknown unknowns.

>> Bill Whelan: So everything we've talked about today, what is the most important unknown unknown less than a year from the election?

 

>> Karl Rove: Well, who are the two parties nominees gonna be? Whichever party figures out a fresh face is to their advantage and acts on it is gonna have a big advantage in the election. We may not know that until August, when the Democrats meet in Chicago, or July, when the Republicans meet in Milwaukee.

Weird things can happen and likely will in this election. And incidentally, right over there, Rumsfeld and I shared something in common, we use stand up desks. One day I walked into my office in the west wing and there's the secretary of defense eyeing my stand up desk. Mine is bigger than his.

 

>> John H. Cochrane: Well, they've figured it out, the curious thing is their inability to act on what everybody in the parties knows to be true.

>> Karl Rove: Yeah, exactly, both parties are that broken and the party leadership is so weak that individuals can sort of impose their will upon it. We have two men who are being, in my opinion, both very greedy and personally self-centered in deciding what is best for the country.

One says, I've got to run in order to wash away the ill effect of having lost the last election. And the other one says, I'm enjoying my life in the Oval office so much. I'm willing to put our country at risk by having me, continue to decline and maybe even die in my second term and surrender my powers to a completely incompetent vice president.

 

>> Bill Whelan: Karl, thanks for coming on GoodFellows, come back soon, let's see how this plays out.

>> Karl Rove: You bet, thanks for having me on.

>> H. R. McMaster: Great seeing you.

>> Bill Whelan: We move on to our B block, and we're gonna talk today about the situation in the Middle east. As I mentioned, beginning of the show, we're recording this on Monday, the 20th 7th, and so the truce will go on for a couple more days.

But wanna ask the three of you, is this what happens after the truce ends? And let's look at this with the principles involved here, I wanna know what's next for Israel, what's next for Hamas, what's next for the US, and what's next for Iran and its various proxies, such as the Houthis.

Who seem to be in the news every day doing something like firing missiles and taking ships in the Persian Gulf? HR, why don't you start this, and why don't you talk about what's next for Israel, especially what you think they'll do militarily?

>> H. R. McMaster: Well, it's gonna be a resumption of the offensive around Gaza, in Gaza, and the tasks are incomplete, which is the destruction of the organization and its infrastructure.

And by the US Department of Defense definition of destruction, that means that Hamas can no longer conduct operations against Israel without complete reconstitution. What that's going to take are continued efforts to reduce the infrastructure in northern Gaza. But to at least conduct raids to capture or kill Hamas leaders who have left northern Gaza and are hiding in southern Gaza.

I think it's gonna be important during this next phase of the operation to provide significant humanitarian assistance to reduce the suffering of the Palestinians who are not part of Hamas. And, of course, the operation is gonna continue, I think, for weeks, if not months, to be able to regain control of all the hostages were not released in these next couple of rounds.

And then to complete the destruction of Hamas. But the other possibilities, and I like to hear what the whole team thinks about this, is that this could escalate to a much broader conflict. It already is a much broader conflict. You mentioned the Houthis, but also the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran is mobilizing its militias and proxy forces across the region from multiple attacks on US forces and facilities.

But also to open other fronts against Israel, from the West bank to the Golan Heights and the border with Syria to southern Lebanon. So I can foresee, Bill, a scenario in which there are a series of escalating attacks that ultimately compel the Biden administration to go after Iran's terrorist network more broadly in the region.

And maybe even begin to act like we know what the return address is. And that return address is obviously Tehran.

>> Bill Whelan: Niall?

>> Niall Ferguson: Well, I think Hamas is gonna be destroyed eventually, despite the pressure on Israel to cease fire, despite the reluctance of the Biden administration to exert real pressure on Iran.

But when Hamas is destroyed, act two of the drama will be whether or not Iran unleashes Hezbollah from Lebanon. Because there's a whole bigger war that could yet happen, to say nothing of some of the other forces that are potentially threatening Israel at the moment, as well as attacking american forces.

Really the strangest thing about all of this, in my view, has been the hesitancy of the United States to state publicly what Iran is risking in unleashing its proxies in the way that it has against Israel. And I do think that this somewhat ambiguous response has created an extremely dangerous situation for Israel.

Where it loses legitimacy in the eyes of international observers for its just war against the terrorists who perpetrated the atrocities of October 7. But it also finds itself practically isolated because the United States support is so ambivalent. So I'm quite concerned that this can get a lot worse.

Maybe not until the new year. I have a sense that therell be something of a lull, but I think if Hamas is really seem to be on the verge of destruction, then Hezbollah will be unleashed and the war will in fact escalate. That's what I fear.

>> Bill Whelan: John?

 

>> John H. Cochrane: Even getting to that point seems to me harder. Can you take two weeks off and then go back to a serious war where the objective is annihilate Hamas? Hamas still has hundreds of hostages and is obviously going to dribble them out. I was interested by the report that Netanyahu's first instinct was, I'm sorry, the hostages are gone, we're going to do this to save Israel no matter what.

But obviously he isn't doing that and can't do that anymore. But I don't say Hamas played the game brutally and well to have those hostages. The humanitarian assistance, I gather the way this works is Hamas doles it out, and if you want any humanitarian assistance, you better support Hamas.

Even that is fraught. My one hope here is that the Arab states have gotten really sick of Hamas. So we're not seeing any of that usual support for Hamas. But we're at a stalemate of lack of will in Ukraine, and I worry that it took about three weeks to get to a stalemate of lack of will in Israel.

And will in Israel be able to even without an invasion from the north or an explosion in the West bank or Iran setting something going. Israel will be able to get back going in the way that goes after its fundamental war aim of destroying Hamas. Hamas is not gonna say, well, we gave you the last hostage, so come destroy us now.

That's not the way this ends.

>> Bill Whelan: HR.

>> H. R. McMaster: Yeah, I just say to qualify on the humanitarian assistance, I think the Israelis have to bring it with them and they've got to control it. I think that there's no way that humanitarian assistance can provide it with good faith to Hamas.

They will control it. They'll use it for their own means and to remain in power and so forth. So that's one aspect of the operation. But I'll tell you, John, I think they're gonna obviously go back on the offensive, and what hasn't stopped is intelligence collection and analysis.

And I think that the release of the hostages was an opportunity probably to get a higher degree of clarity on where the hostages are being held. And I think what you'll see when military operations resume are probably raids to gain control of those areas where the hostages are being kept.

And then to operate out of those nodes, those areas that are then controlled while they also hunt down Hamas leadership. There's also a multinational dimension to this, of course, involving the entire Iranian terrorist network, including Hezbollah, the proxy army in Syria. Elements of Hamas and Palestinians along with jihad in the West bank, but also those who are sitting in gutter.

I think that they are dead men walking the same thing with their financial enterprise internationally. I mean, it's really important, I think, for the United States to escalate to go after that entire network alongside the Israelis and other partners. The narrative that you hear, and Neil was alluding to this, is that we're trying to prevent escalation.

Well, I think as long as we're trying to prevent escalation, that Iran gets to escalate with impunity. So I think what we have to do is stop these kind of signals and measured responses when acts of war committed against us act like it and respond not proportionately, but respond in a way that's overwhelming.

That goes after not only their will to continue these attacks, but also their capacity to do so by taking out that infrastructure that's important to them, including, I would say, the IRGC headquarters itself.

>> John H. Cochrane: So you're giving me some hope, HR, I wanna follow up on one thing you said.

Of course, the israeli occupation in Gaza has been pretty awful in terms of blowing up buildings and a number of civilians caught the crossfire. Are you saying that given a few more days or maybe even weeks of the ceasefire. That they will be able to build up intelligence to do in southern Gaza a little more surgically what they need to do to know where exactly people are to get at tunnels without blowing up ten buildings on top of the tunnels?

 

>> H. R. McMaster: Well, I've heard a lot of inaccuracies about the campaign in Gaza, saying that now that the ground offensive has begun, there are gonna be more civilian casualties. Actually, the opposite is the case.

>> John H. Cochrane: Right.

>> H. R. McMaster: Ground forces can be more discriminant, especially those that are equipped with combined arms capabilities like the IDFs.

I think people forget we enabled a very light force to take over Raqqa. This is the SDF, right, the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria with our special operations forces, but also our airpower, US, British and French air power in that small town. The estimates are now good estimates two years after the fact that 1600 civilians were killed in taking Raqqa back from ISIS.

The similar figures in terms of Proportion of civilian casualties in Mosul, why, because of the almost exclusive reliance on artillery and air power. Once you get in, into the area and began to gain control of that terrain, get Hamas to respond to you, because now you're in control of portions of territory in Gaza that are of value to them.

You get the upper hand and you can apply overwhelming firepower but with discrimination and better effect in terms of killing the enemy but protecting civilians. A tank round is pretty discriminate, right, a 500 pound bomb, not as discriminate.

>> Niall Ferguson: Can I add one final thought that links up to what we were discussing earlier with Carl?

I've had a chance to speak to quite a few people from the Arab world in the last few weeks, that's not so hard in London. It is interesting how much criticism I hear of the Biden administration, that there is no great love felt for Iran in the Gulf.

Where I think there is a frustration that what was going forward with the Abraham accords has been derailed. I don't think that derailing will be a permanent thing, the expectation is that a change of government in Washington will put American policy back on a firmer footing. I think its important to notice how many different international situations around the world hinge on what will happen next November.

But there is great frustration with the way that the Biden administration has handled this and no great enthusiasm for the benefits that have been reaped by Iran, and it's important to know that.

>> Bill Whelan: Let's wrap up the segment, I'd like to ask a two part question. The first question, HR, you talked about Hamas leadership, Wisconsin and Qatar.

At what point do you think Israel will do something along the lines of an Entebbe raid and go into Qatar and try to take out the leadership, do you see that happening? And then secondly, Neil, you talked at the beginning of the segment about the destruction of Hamas, how do you exactly destroy Hamas, besides killing all the militants?

In other words, how do you snuff out the sentiment, the emotion that drives it, HR, why don't you go first?

>> H. R. McMaster: Well, it's gonna be more subtle than Entebbe type raid against Hamas leaders, broadly. And maybe, I don't think you'd start with Hania, for example, but you would start with those that are more closely affiliated with the terrorist organization.

The direct action against the Israelis that was taken, the horrible crimes that were committed against Israelis on October 7. But I think overall there's gonna be a determination over time to hunt down all of them. I mean, this was a massacre that demands that kind of a response I think, just like, it took us 20 years to hunt down some perpetrators of the attack on USS Cole, for example.

But we didn't give up on that, and I don't think the Israelis will give up on it. The destruction of the organization can happen physically and financially initially. But really what you're getting at is the importance of separating these terrorist organizations from sources of ideological support. And I think what's immensely important is to trace the grievances of the Palestinian population back to Hamas.

Back to the organization that diverted all of the assistance that could have improved Palestinians quality of life over so many years. And diverted it into that terrorist infrastructure, back to the organization that engages in child abuse on a massive scale, fomenting hatred, brainwashing young people. And sending them to early deaths after they dehumanize them and use that hatred to justify in their minds, violence against innocence.

So I think it's immensely important to have, as you're alluding to, Bill, an educational and informational dimension to this effort to defeat Hamas. Just as after September 11, there was a great emphasis on isolating jihadist terrorists from sources of ideological support associated with the Qutubist and Salafi jihadist or Takfireen branches of perversions, I would say, of Islam.

 

>> Bill Whelan: Neil?

>> H. R. McMaster: Well, it seems to me that the ultimate goal of organizations like Hamas and indeed their Iranian sponsors, is to destroy Israel, to perpetrate a second Holocaust, that's really their objective. And October 7th was like an illustration of how that second Holocaust would happen, because there were scenes worthy of the Holocaust played out.

Hideous scenes of unbelievably sadistic violence, including sexual violence. And I don't know about you, but I don't hear much these days about the National Socialist German Workers party that was destroyed. You can destroy that kind of organization, you can wipe it out. I don't know about you, HR, but I don't hear much about ISIS anymore.

So Hamas has to be destroyed, that's what's gotta happen.

>> John H. Cochrane: But that does lead to the troublesome long run question, where are we going at the end of this? I hope we can all decide the two state solution that has been the dream of my entire lifetime of this.

 

>> Donald Rumsfeld: Where one of PLO or Hamas gets to take over and will suddenly sing, I guess I'm using the Kumbaya metaphor too much that today, but we'll suddenly agree to peacefully live alongside Israel, that is completely dead. Where are we going instead? Nobody else wants to run the place.

Israeli military occupation doesn't seem like a good, long run solution, and that seems still to be quite the open question.

>> H. R. McMaster: Yeah, I mean, I think just quickly to that, John. I mean, there has to be a period of Israeli occupation. I mean, because Hamas will just.

>> John H. Cochrane: Well, and after World War II, I'm sorry you guys brought up world War two, how do we get rid of that?

It has to be military occupation for ten years.

>> H. R. McMaster: I mean, the Israelis have no option. But I know what Secretary Blinken is trying to do, and I hope he's successful in doing so, is to garner support for a peace enforcement force, that's what's gonna be necessary. Not some weak kind of UNIFIL force like you see in southern Lebanon, but a force that has offensive capability to go after terrorists when they try to reseed back into Gaza.

And that force has gotta have a degree of legitimacy with the Palestinian population. And then over time, right, I mean, if there is gonna be some hope, some glimmer of some two state solution in the future. There has to be a legitimate Palestinian political authority that buys into that solution and is not like Hamas is, or PIJ is committed to the destruction of Israel.

And as Neil alluded to, determined to kill all the Jews in the second Holocaust. So there's been a lot of blame, and rightfully so, placed on certain elements of the Israeli population and the ultra conservative and ultra orthodox parties with these unauthorized settlements in the West bank. And the degree to which those have diminished the viability of a two state solution.

Hey, but how about declaring your dedication to the destruction of Israel? That doesn't sound like that's very supportive of two state solution. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of work to be done, obviously, on both sides. And it's mainly political work to help emerge from this, some form of leadership that could be committed to some type of two state solution in the future.

I'll tell you what is undervalued is the work that Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner did in the Trump administration. It was much pilloried. But you know what? The proposal they came up with was the proposal that would at least be kind of acceptable to Israelis. That's now something maybe to pull out and show to the Palestinians and say, okay, do you think, what do you prefer?

Do you prefer what's going on in Gaza right now, or do you prefer this? And so I think that there is a choice to be made, whether leadership can emerge that can maybe seize on that choice remains to be seen.

>> John H. Cochrane: Yeah, cuz that's where we were going, slowly but surely.

 

>> Donald Rumsfeld: Greater prosperity, greater freedom, Bit by bit, more jobs in Israel, more businesses, more stuff goes in and out. Things get bit by bit better, hopefully, governance gets bit by bit better. And we'll finalize who gets a state after we're living alongside each other a little more peacefully.

I hope we can get back to that vision.

>> H. R. McMaster: This is hard for the Israelis to do, obviously, and I'm not saying that this is completely analogous. But when we evacuated the civilians out of the city of Tilafer and absolutely destroyed al-Qaeda and Iraq there, in what was their training and support base.

Which we endeavored to draw a very strong contract between what the city looked like and what life was like, it was hellish under al-Qaeda's control. And what it was like after we, alongside courageous Iraqis, liberated that city. And so we had a huge information campaign with just the Arabic word choose on it.

And then distributed everything that you could think of in terms of the contrast between the marketplace that was blown up and now the marketplace was open. The schools that were turned into terrorist training facilities and ID factories, and now the school's back open. And then we had, there's just everything that we could think of, soccer balls and so forth, just had the word shoes on it, as well as those billboards and posters.

And it got to the population, and they realized they had a stake in preventing al-Qaeda from coming back. And they'll try to come back, Hamas will try to come back. But I knew that we had won when one of our UAV's, one night. So it picked up a terrorist trying to put in an ID, and an elderly woman came out with a broomstick and started beating him over the shoulders with a broomstick.

I mean, then I know, okay, hey, I think we have an enduring security here.

>> Bill Whelan: Okay.

>> John H. Cochrane: Broomsticks.

>> Bill Whelan: Broomsticks, and we're gonna leave it there for this conversation, gentlemen, good talk. And we now move on to the lightning round.

>> Lightning round.

>> Bill Whelan: Okay, first lightning round question.

This is in Europe addressing the G20 leaders for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine. Vladimir Putin said, and I quote, we should think about how to stop this tragedy, Neil, what's he up to?

>> Niall Ferguson: He's taking advantage of the fact that he knows the Biden administration wants a negotiation now that the Ukrainian counter offensive clearly has not achieved its objective.

And he knows that if he can portray Zelenskyy as the obstacle to peace, then he might get to keep quite a big slice of Ukraine, easy.

>> Bill Whelan: Okay, Sean Cochran, I turned you with a lightning round question. This is a Napoleon parallel, I saw Napoleon in the theater last week, by the way, I don't know if you guys have seen it yet.

It was okay mix, we could talk about that in a future show. Here's a Napoleon parallel, after a very brief exile, Sam Altman is back as chief executive OpenAI. John, what does it say about the state of the AI industry?

>> John H. Cochrane: It says a lot about crazy governance of nonprofit versus profit boards.

It says a lot about this effective altruism craziness which has inflected a lot of the tech industry. Talking to some tech friends about sort of the silly things said around there. And ultimately, it looks like this technology will get into the hands of people who know how to use it.

 

>> Bill Whelan: Neil, is Altman Napoleon?

>> Niall Ferguson: No, Elon is Napoleon. I mean, I don't think Altman's the most important person in AI, he's not even actually a data scientist. But he saw the opportunity that large language models presented, and hes picked it up and run with it. I think this whole battle was partly a product of the weird structure of corporate governance that emerged when the nonprofit had to become a prophet to get all that money from Microsoft.

But there was also some internal dispute about the speed at which he wanted to proceed. The major winner is actually Microsoft, which now has a stronger position than it had before. I still worry about where this goes, I still ask myself, is this like the Manhattan project with the governance of a bunch of railroads in the 19th century?

I'm uneasy about that, but I can't really define what we can do better at this point. There are so many genies out of so many bottles in the AI competition. There's a race that's going on between the major tech companies and between the US and China. It probably doesn't hugely matter how OpenAI is governed, that's probably not the key issue here.

 

>> Bill Whelan: Okay.

>> John H. Cochrane: Yeah, and software can be copied once you've invented it, there's no big single secret like there is with atomic bombs. And the idea that we are going to gently guide this into some future knowing exactly what the problems are is crazy. This is a very competitive field, hundreds of large language models out there, doesn't matter what you do with any particular one of them.

 

>> Bill Whelan: Now, HR, I turn to you and let's go back to Europe. Geert Wilders and his Freedom party have won the largest number of votes in the seats in the dutch national election. About Mister Wilders, he is vocally anti EU. He's vowed to halt all immigration into his country and he does not want to provide arms to Ukraine.

This comes at the same time, HR, that in Germany, the far right AFD party is pulling higher than the three parties currently governing Germany. Is this coincidence or a trend?

>> H. R. McMaster: It's a trend you could add in the Slovakia election recently as well. And I think it's really important to understand kind of the popular sentiment that gives rise to these types of political leaders and victors in these elections.

But also to understand kind of the role that Russia is playing in supporting these far right. As far as far left parties in an attempt to polarize these countries and reduce their confidence in who they are as a people and their democratic processes and institutions. I mean, there are real problems that need to be addressed in the area of immigration and migration, for example, though, in Denmark and more broadly in Europe, and heck, in our country.

So it's important to understand where these politicians come from because they don't come out of thin air, they come from popular sentiment associated with dissatisfaction. But also there is a foreign role being played by the Kremlin in Europe for sure. And the Bulgarian election is gonna be next, next year, too.

 

>> Niall Ferguson: A little bit of lightning. I've met Hert Wilders, of course, Ayan, my wife, knows him quite well. I think he gets very badly misrepresented because it's typical for the New York Times to categorize all of these people as dangerous, far right individuals. Wildlife just articulates what a very substantial part of the dutch electorate has felt for many years.

There's too much immigration and it has adverse consequences. And this is what the mainstream parties don't say.

>> H. R. McMaster: They said the same thing about Giorgia Meloni as well, too, and she's turned out to be very effective.

>> John H. Cochrane: Everyone disparages these guys by saying, far right, far right, far right.

But we're supposed to love democracy, these people are being elected by voters, what's on those voters minds? And it's not so much quantity of immigration, it's unassimilated immigration. It's immigrants that then turn out in the streets for violently anti semitic protests and talk about not adopting. The values of your home country.

And they're saying, what the hell is going wrong here? And I think you should listen to them.

>> Donald Rumsfeld: Milei just won, the slightly eccentric libertarian just won in Argentina. Well, he too gets limp. Far right, far right, far right. Maybe we should listen to what people are saying.

 

>> Bill Whelan: Donna is about to ask you about Argentina. Tell us about Milei and your thoughts on that because this has a very interesting fiscal angle to it.

>> John H. Cochrane: Well, of course, I love the concept that Argentina should use the US dollar as a great way to pre-commit against its fiscal problems.

And we are finally seeing a country. Argentina used to be as rich as the US. It's one of the disasters of the 20th century that it stopped growing and that it's been continually chaotic ever since. So here comes a guy who's a little bit eccentric personally. He's got some interesting libertarian policies.

He talks like an economist. You can tell nobody's writing his speeches but himself and wants to use the US dollar instead of one more round of IMF and God knows what. So I wish him luck, it'll be very fun to watch.

>> Bill Whelan: Okay, a final question for the panel.

The Rolling Stones have announced their North American tour dates for 2024. The tour is sponsored by AARP, that is formerly the American Association of Retired Persons. All kidding aside about geriatrics, gentlemen, are the Rolling Stones overrated?

>> Niall Ferguson: No, they're the greatest rock and roll band in the world.

 

>> Bill Whelan: Really, the greatest.

>> Niall Ferguson: Always have been, always will be.

>> John H. Cochrane: Yes, the Beatles were better.

>> Niall Ferguson: No, Keith Richardson, the greatest rock and roll guitarist. Mick Jagger, the greatest rock and roll singer. They're old enough to run for president, that's for sure. But no one will ever be as good at rock and roll as the Stones at their best.

On that, I'm uncompromising.

>> Bill Whelan: HR?

>> H. R. McMaster: I agree. You can't listen to the Hot Rocks album and not come away thinking, because it's an extraordinary band. And what I love about him is the influence of blues. Some people criticize them because they said they ripped a lot of their songs off of old blues musicians, but they did take their name from a muddy water song.

And you can feel the blues infused through their music in a way that you don't hear that with the Beatles.

>> John H. Cochrane: Well, the Stones may be old, but the Beatles have now perfected coming back from the dead via AI. So there's still a chance for our discussion to continue.

 

>> Bill Whelan: And we will have another discussion for our viewers. You should know we have one more episode left in 2023. You do not wanna miss it, because we will have as our guest the one and only, the incomparable Barry Weiss. And how do you make sure you don't miss the episode?

Subscribe to our show. And if you subscribe to us, do us a favor. Leave a few nice comments. Rate review us. Give us some stars. Help us deal with that crazy little algorithm thing on YouTube. On behalf of my colleagues, Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, HR McMaster, our guest today, Karl Rove.

We hope you enjoyed the conversation. We'll see you back here in a couple weeks. Until then, take care. And again, thanks for watching.

>> Presenter: If you enjoyed this show and are interested in watching more content featuring HR McMaster. Watch battlegrounds also available at hoover.org.